A town council has apologised after 'toppling' dozens of gravestones in a cemetery near York - and says it will now consider paying to reinstate the headstones.

Haxby Town Council issued the public apology on its website, noticeboard and Facebook after the safety 'topple testing’ in Haxby and Wigginton Cemetery in October left 87 gravestones lying flat on the ground.

The town council jointly operates the cemetery with Wigginton Parish Council - and a joint cemetery committee of councillors from both councils oversees the cemetery.

Now Haxby Town Council, following a recommendation from the cemetery committee, will consider paying to fix the headstones.

As reported by The Press in October, mourners told of their heartache after discovering the flattened stones. 

They said they were not given sufficient notice of the topple testing and people had not been offered time to rectify issues with the stones themselves.

A notice warning of the topple test had appeared on the cemetery gates, in Oaken Grove in Haxby, two days before it happened.

Haxby and Wigginton Cemetery Committee, which arranged for the gravestones to be flattened, said it was ‘meeting a statutory health and safety requirement of running a cemetery’ as the stones were not safe.

Now, in its 'public apology', Haxby Town Council said it accepted that the "communication with residents and headstone owners about the topple testing should have been better and for that it sincerely apologises".

It said the cemetery committee had been without a clerk for some time and administration matters had been picked up by councillors on a voluntary and unpaid basis.

The apology added: "Please be assured that lessons have been learned and as such the communication will in future be much improved."

The notice said that Haxby Town Council would now consider the recommendation from the cemetery committee - that it pay to reinstate the toppled headstones.

Fiona Allison lost her mother Maria in 1992, and her stone was one of those flattened.

She claimed that families affected should have received letters of apology - rather than the statement which appeared on a website and Facebook.

York Press: Some of the flattened gravestones. Some of the flattened gravestones. (Image: SWNS)

She said: “We’re still waiting for some answers now.

“I don’t know of one grave owner who has got a letter.

“My father hasn’t got one yet, and he’s still at the same address that was registered with the committee.

“Why haven’t letters of apology gone out to older people, who don’t use social media?"

Tracey Smith lost her brother James, aged 21, in 1992 and his stone was also affected.

She said she was quoted £372 to reinstate it.

She said: “The council have got so much scope in the village, the noticeboards, they could have put the apology up around the cemetery.

“At the end of the day communication is key, making sure people are aware so that this never happens again – 87 families going through this trauma.

“There’s still headstones laid down, one of them has got a bunch of flowers just tied to it."

Haxby Town Council said it will consider the cemetery committee’s recommendation at the next full council meeting on Monday, December 11.

The Press asked Haxby Town Council to comment and will publish any response received.